All eyes on the DPP convention

 This week, it is the turn of the Democratic Progressive Par ty (DPP) to hold its elective convention. The long-awaited meet will be held in Blantyre today and tomorrow. Suffice to say that the shenanigans of the past one year—mostly in the form of power-consolidation by the par ty’s leader, Peter Mutharika and his supporters—have literally stripped the convention of the drama that was originally expected to characterise it.

Just as the Malawi Congress Par ty (MCP) did for its leader Lazarus Chakwera, DPP goes to the polls to endorse Mutharika as the party’s torch-bearer for 2025. The take-home message from both parties is: torch-bearers for political parties are elected long before elective conferences. Additionally, those who compete against a sitting president or leader do so at own peril.

And after Mutharika failed to retain the presidency i n the 2020 cour t – sanctioned presidential election, several people in DPP emerged to try their luck for the party’s top leadership position. They included Machinga Likwenu legislator Bright Msaka, Chiradzulu South member of Parliament (MP) Joseph Mwanamvekha, Mulanje Central MP Kondwani Nankhumwa , former Reserve Bank governor Dalitso Kabambe, Paul Gadama and the party’s regional governor for the South Charles Mchacha. But two years down the line, when Mutharika declared that he is staying put, all but Nankhumwa developed gooseflesh, and stopped jostling for the top position.

N a n k h umw a wa s persistent in pressuring Mutharika and other leaders to seek a fresh mandate as the par ty’s leaders from the convention. At the elective conference, he, Nankhumwa, would take on Mutharika for the presidency. He was the lone bull that dared to break the long-held taboo of fighting the master at the polls.

B r ave as he wa s , Nankhumwa must have been slow in reading the writing on the wall—that by daring your political boss in a fight, you are digging your own political grave. So, as they say, the rest is history. Nankhumwa, alongside a few noisy others, notably, Grezelder Jeffrey, was booted out of DPP. He went on to form his own political party.

In MCP, the prospect of anyone in its rank and file rising to challenge Chakwera, the sitting State President, at the convention was even more remote. Save for one disgruntled and noisy rubble-rousers in the name of Alex Major, who declared to do so. Of course, nobody took him seriously. Come the elective conference, he chickened out of the presidential race. In Malawi and Africa, in general, it is an unwritten law that a sitting State president does not face opposition from within his or her party. When you lose, he or she can ‘finish’ you off politically and otherwise.

But unlike in MCP, where some NEC positions such as 1st vice-president and secretary general, were hotly contested—some with as many as eight candidates—the DPP contest is rather flat. The only highly-competed for position is that of vice-president for the South, which has attracted t h r e e c o n te s t a n ts— Mwanamvekha, v i ce-president for the South, George Chaponda and Thyolo Central legislator Ben Phiri. On average, all other senior NGC positions have two candidates while treasurer-general Jappie Mhango goes in unopposed.

One undoing of the MCP campaign for NEC positions were financial inducements to delegates. Some candidates splurged hundreds of millions of kwacha to candidates turning the exercise into a gold mine for some delegates. But credit to them. They ate the money, but did not sell their votes to the highest bidders. DPP delegates are hereby implored to do likewise. Receive the money from those dishing it out like it has fallen from heaven like mana, but give your vote to your preferred candidate who can really help to build the party.

A l l in all, I wish to congratulate DPP for finally holding the convention, albeit late. This convention should have taken place in 2020, w h e n t h e mandate for the current NEC members ended. The reason Nankhumwa was fired from DPP is because DPP did not want to hold the convention earlier. Nankhumwa’s People’s Development Party (PDP) will draw its membership from DPP. This could haunt the latter in 2025.

Chaponda’s slip of the tongue that unlike the governing MCP, his party does not have a ‘goldmine’ to raise K1 billion for the elective conference is hereby forgiven. The implication of his statement is that MCP ‘solola-ed’ the K1 billion from the taxpayers’ purse. By implication, this could also mean that DPP would do the same if they were where MCP is now. But as I have said, Chaponda is let off the hook for saying what he did not intentionally mean. To err is human.

DPP is also set to pull off one better than MCP on sharing of NGC positions across its political regions as well as on gender balance.

May the best candidates carry the day.